


If You Ran Away Come Back Home

by CapriciousKitten (SunflowerPineapple), Scout924



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Ficlet, Getting Back Together, Implied/Referenced Sex, Longing, M/M, Poetry, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 12:59:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15908766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunflowerPineapple/pseuds/CapriciousKitten, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scout924/pseuds/Scout924
Summary: Steve really hopes he can find a way to get Bucky back, but he can't seem to find the perfect words.Bucky doesn't need the words to be perfect.  He just needs Steve.Featuring Original Poetry and Undying Devotion.  A match made in Fandom Heaven.





	If You Ran Away Come Back Home

**Author's Note:**

> Presenting: The first of many collaborations between Scout924 and CapriciousKitten!
> 
>  
> 
> Title Is from the song “Where’s My Love” by SYML

_ A flower not in bloom _

_ Still beautiful _

_ Still alive _

 

Steve crumples up the paper and throws it away, as he has with his last several attempts.  He remembers writing poetry back when he was still small and sick, remembers how Bucky would read it and stare at him wordlessly for long moments before kissing him hungrily.  He remembers thinking the words were stupid, but it always produced a reaction from his best friend and lover, and that’s what Steve wants right now. He doesn’t know how to get back to where they were.  He knows they never really will, but maybe if he can write the correct combination of words he’ll get to see that hunger in Bucky’s eyes again.

 

Now that life has settled down, now that there are no wars to fight and no authorities to outrun, both of their names having been cleared, it seems to Steve like perhaps now he has a chance.  And as he tries to tell himself when he’s lying awake at night, Bucky probably still loves him. Now that Bucky has more or less recovered from years of abuse (though Steve knows he’ll never fully be the same), he’s never expressed any interest in being anywhere Steve is not.  He’s followed Steve until they found a place to settle, and Steve thinks that maybe now, after all these years, they are finally home.

 

_ Your face _

_ I’ve seen, gaunt and starved _

_ I’ve seen, round and well fed _

_ I’ve seen my own, in a mirror, countless times _

_ But yours is still more familiar _

_ Yours is still ... _

 

Steve crumples yet another page.  How can he put into words decades worth of love and devotion?  He knows he’ll never love anyone else. He couldn’t if he tried, because he had tried, during the long years between Bucky’s fall from the train and Bucky’s return to him in this century. No kiss, no touch, no heated glance could ever touch the gaping hole losing Bucky had left in his heart.  He’s irrevocably tied to Steve, and if he’d never come back, Steve knows he never would have loved again.

 

But Bucky did come back.  He’s alive, and Steve’s alive, and despite nearly impossible circumstances, they are together again.  Together, but only just so. They live in the same house. They see each other every day. Sometimes, he chances a tentative smile across the room at Bucky and gets one in return. 

 

As Steve stares at another piece of paper, he reminds himself that there’s a good chance Bucky still loves him, but he finds with each passing day that he can’t just keeping sharing a space with Bucky without knowing for sure.  He wants to touch and be touched again. He wants to share a bed again, though it’ll doubtless be different than it was before, the two of them cramped together in a bed barely big enough for one. Steve hopes, if they do share a bed again, they’ll still sleep as close, pressed together without an inch of space between them. He’d toss out the large, extravagant bed that takes up most of the space in his bedroom now if it meant he could feel Bucky’s warm skin against his again. 

 

Steve jots down one more poem, decides he hates this one too, before crumpling the paper in his fist and throwing it in the trash.  He heads out to go for a run. He searches the apartment for Bucky, but he’s gone out again. He does this, goes out alone at odd hours. Steve doesn’t pry, he’s just grateful to know that Bucky will come home each night.  He always does. 

 

~*~

 

When Steve returns home, covered in sweat but only barely winded, he heads to his room to change.  He passes Bucky’s closed bedroom door, soft light coming from beneath it. Steve closes the door behind him and looks over to his desk, startled to see previously crumpled pages smoothed out and laying stacked one on top of the other.  Upon closer inspection, he finds the poem he’d started just before heading out on his run lying on top.

 

_ Wanting _

_ It never ceases, only intensifies _

_ If I could make it subside, I wouldn’t _

_ I will always want _

_ It’s an ache, throbbing, burning, tearing me apart _

_ Only one thing will soothe it _

_ Only you could ... _

 

Below, in scratchy, slanted letters that have surprisingly not changed despite decades of brainwashing, is written a single word.

 

_ Yes. _

 

While Steve had always thought the smoldering fire inside him burning for Bucky could not possibly be stoked further, finding that single affirmation sends it hot and rolling through his veins.  He nearly tears his door from the hinges, barely stopping himself from barreling through Bucky’s, stopping short and knocking on the door, his fists shaking in restraint. He takes one breath, then two, and the door opens wide, revealing everything all at once about the only person he’ll ever love.  He stares at the man unblinkingly, trying to commit this moment to memory. Bucky’s eyes are burning a hole in him, his gaze so intense, and  _ this _ , this is how Bucky used to look at him, back when Steve was small and all they had was each other.

 

Bucky’s wearing nothing but a pair of tight, black, boxer briefs.  He’s still so perfect, so beautiful it makes Steve ache, from his thick, firm shoulders down to the curve of his muscular thighs, the soft angle of his cheek bones and the stormy blue of his eyes. Steve desperately wants to touch him, but he thinks he should wait for Bucky to make the first move.  Luckily, Steve doesn’t have to wait long. Bucky steps forward, wraps one hand around the back of Steve’s neck, the other sliding around his waist, and pulls him in for a deep, heated kiss. As soon as their lips touch, Steve feels the fire in him change from a desperate want to an unending devotion.  All too soon, Bucky pulls back slightly, murmuring against Steve’s lips. 

 

“I didn’t know if you would still want me.”  His eyes are filled with a look somewhere between longing and lust.

 

“I will always want you,” Steve replies, “‘Til the end of the line.”  He hauls Bucky in by the waist and tries to reaffirm the statement with another lingering kiss.  “There will never be another. It will always be you.”

 

They fall into bed, and Bucky makes love to Steve with all the tenderness and care he used to back when there was still a risk of Bucky hurting him.  The hazy memories come flooding back to him, and Steve feels his eyes burn at the realization that this is real, after all the years of longing and dreaming of having Bucky in his arms again, here he is. 

 

Afterwards, when Bucky is dozing in a state of post-coital bliss, Steve climbs out of bed and rifles through Bucky’s desk for a pen and paper, and finding it, sits and writes.

 

_ You consume me _

_ And my love for you, it burns _

_ Like fire _

 

_ I am whole again _

_ With you, again a part of me _

_ This fire never ceases _

_ But no longer destroys _


End file.
